Saturday, February 18, 2012

Peter Haas(z) - Almost Certainly Not a Dud Root

I’ve been thinking of reviving this blog.

Actually, I’ve been thinking about starting three blogs: one on electronic music, one on sport and one on politics and society. It didn’t take me too long to detect a small flaw in this plan, though. So for now I’ll see if I can write enough to resurrect this one.

Somehow in my absence this blog has reached almost 900 views. Perhaps the Anonymous who wrote “Seb Prowse is a dud root” in the comments section of an older post has been checking back regularly for signs of a reaction? If so, they just got one: I deleted the comment. There are some things a man likes to keep quiet.

Interestingly, the same phrase also appeared in the women’s toilets at Trades Hall late last year (or so I was told). The plot thickens. Either our perpetrator is being rather presumptuous, or we are dealing with a rather short list of suspects. Or, perhaps., I am merely the incidental subject of a post-ironic slogan which will soon be as ubiquitous as the dreaded Vote for Pedro or, preferably, the mysterious “Who is Peter Haasz?” graffiti campaign at Melbourne Uni in the late 1990s.

I never knew the answer to this question at the time, although I have met Peter Haasz several times in subsequent years. We bonded over achieving fifteen minutes of name recognition in ridiculous circumstances. If I ever meet him again, I’ll ask if his name has a ‘z’ on the end. I’ve written it both ways and neither looks quite right.

Pretty soon we’ll be saying that if you can remember the late 1990s in Melbourne, you weren’t really there. Or, at least, you weren’t getting your gear from Carl Williams.

Here I was taking a leisurely stroll down memory lane, and now I’ve run smack bang into a dead drug dealer. Time to end this post and think about what comes next.